


The Final Acceptance

by skargasm



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-24
Updated: 2013-02-24
Packaged: 2017-12-03 19:41:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/701916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skargasm/pseuds/skargasm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>→  Admitting this one final thing meant she could go home....</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Final Acceptance

**Title:** → The Final Acceptance  
 **Rating:** → R  
 **Author:** → [](http://skargasm.livejournal.com/profile)[**skargasm**](http://skargasm.livejournal.com/)  
 **Character:** → Willow  
 **Prompt:** → Prompt #344 : Murder @ [](http://tamingthemuse.livejournal.com/profile)[**tamingthemuse**](http://tamingthemuse.livejournal.com/)  
 **Fandom:** → BtVS  
 **Word Count:** → 599  
 **Genre:** → AU  
 **Beta (s):** → Unbeta'd but proofread  
 **Disclaimer:** → Not mine.  
 **Summary:** → Admitting this one final thing meant she could go home....  


* * *

It was practically an impossible thing to accept in herself. After everything, losing Tara, almost ending the world, this one thing was the big stumbling block to being allowed to go home.

The leader of the Coven said that until she was prepared to acknowledge what happened and forgive herself, she wouldn't be able to gain proper control over her magic or take her place at Buffy's side. She knew that it made sense – it was about facing all of the darkness within, acknowledging all of the stuff she had pushed down over the years, all of the times she had pushed Xander into doing what she wanted, all of the times she had looked Giles in the eye and lied about what kind of magic she was practising. And she could do that – she _had_ done that. Like a twelve step programme, writing to each of them and apologising for the things she had done to them.

They had forgiven her instantly – again, no surprise. They were so much more forgiving than her parents had ever been, accepting that she was only human, that she made mistakes, that sometimes she just got it wrong. The loss of Tara after _just_ getting her back, the sheer astonishment at the way she had died had seemed to shake something loose within her, something she had been fighting against since bringing Buffy back, since the whole incident with Dawn and Rack. It was terrifying to think that she had almost ended the world but she had faced that in herself – the power, the capability, the desire to do just that. Faced it, accepted it, embraced the change in herself that needed to be made.

But this one thing – acknowledging, accepting this one thing was like a mountain that she simply could not climb.

Madeleine had tried to talk her through it, had tried to get her to just to say it out loud but for the first time in a long time one of her sessions with her mentor had ended in bitterness, tears and disappointment. How did she admit this one thing that seemed so against _everything_ she believed in?

From the age of 15, she had been fighting the good fight, always on the side of **good**. Right there alongside Buffy, putting her everything into keeping the world safe from her little corner of the world. She had faced the death of classmates and demon boyfriends; the emergence of her own power; her first love and the loss of him to the supernatural world; watched her mentor and her best friends find and lose love in much the same way; she had re-souled one of most infamous vampires ever to walk the earth. All of this she had faced in the last six, seven years. But this one thing – she could not seem to face.

But if she wanted to go home, she had to. In order to go back to her place alongside Buffy and Xander, to help save her birthplace, to honour Tara's memory, she **needed** to do this. She even knew that she didn't have to do it in front of anyone – she just needed to admit it to herself.

Just.

Such a huge thing for such a small word.

She stood in front of the mirror, seeing the new calmness in her facial expression, the pain and knowledge in her eyes that was so hard-won.

“My name is Willow Rosenberg. I am a natural born witch and I broke the first law – I committed murder.”

* * *

fin

* * *


End file.
